eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This is a record of the proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA). The theme of the conference is “Mathematics: Essential research, essential practice.” The theme draws attention to the importance of developing and maintaining links between research and practice and ties in with the joint day of presentations with the 21st biennial conference of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (AAMT). This special feature highlights the benefits of collaboration between researchers, practicing classroom teachers, and curriculum developers. Volume 1 contains the following papers: (1) The Beginnings of MERGA (Ken Clements); (2) Teaching and Learning by Example: The Annual Clements/Foyster Lecture (Helen L. Chick); (3) Introducing Students to Data Representation and Statistics (Richard Lehrer); (4) Studies in the Zone… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Background: Financial accounting is a skills course which to a large extent can be best learned through deliberate practice. Teachers implement this by continuously assigning homeworks, encouraging good study habits, asking students to budget time for studying, and generally exhorting students to “work hard”. Aims: This paper examines the impact of “study habits, skills, and attitudes” (SHSAs) on the performance of students in an introductory financial accounting college course. Sample: 395 2nd year business students in a Philippine university. Method: Data related to variables found to have influenced accounting performance in previous researches as well as SHSA variables are collected through student survey and school records. They are treated as independent variables using multiple regression analysis, with the accounting course final grade as the dependent variable. The… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Numerous studies document high drop-out and failure rates for students in computer programming classes. Studies show that even when some students pass programming classes, they still do not know how to program. Many factors have been considered to explain this problem including gender, age, prior programming experience, major, math background, personal attributes, and the programming language itself. Research in this area has mainly been confined to introductory programming courses. This study explores the problem at a higher level. It tracks students longitudinally as they move from the first introductory programming class, to the second introductory class, and finally, to completion of an advanced programming course. The research question answered was: What are the factors contributing to the success or lack of success in advanced programming? The success… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Undergraduate preservice teachers face many challenges implementing inquiry pedagogy in mathematics lessons. This study provides a step-by-step case analysis of an undergraduate preservice teacher’s actions and responses while teaching an inquiry lesson during a summer math camp for grade 3-6 students conducted at a university. Stumbling blocks that hindered achievement of the overall goals of the inquiry lesson emerged when the preservice teacher asked open-ended questions and learners gave diverse, unexpected responses. Because no prior thought was given to possible student answers, the preservice teacher was not equipped to give pedagogically meaningful responses to her students. Often, the preservice teacher simply ignored the unanticipated responses, impeding the students’ meaning-making attempts. Based on emergent stumbling blocks observed, this study recommends that teacher educators focus novice teacher preparation in… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Many preservice teachers confront their own lack of confidence and actual mathematics phobia for the first time in their math procedures classes. This study was designed to explore the application of a confluent education intervention, a model based on the premise that all learning is accompanied by an affective as well as a cognitive component, to the problem of improving the disposition towards mathematics of 70 student teachers enrolled in a fifth-year multiple subject teaching credential program at the University of California. Using the framework of constructivist theory as a foundation, the paper discusses the effects of prior experience on affective disposition towards mathematics and teachers’ sense of self-efficacy. Data were collected in three stages following “The Mathe Teakst Buk,” an intervention that involves students in a… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study explores the effects of school-level characteristics on North Carolina students’ reading and math achievement from fourth through eighth grade, focusing on the relationships between achievement and the racial and poverty composition of schools. After creating race-by-poverty cohorts of schools, I use multilevel models to examine math and reading achievement for the same students in fourth, sixth, and eighth grades. The racial and poverty composition of schools affect student achievement after factoring in student, family, and other school influences. In addition, increasing teacher quality and school resources reduces but does not eliminate the effects of school racial and poverty composition on student achievement. Policies leading to reductions in racial and poverty isolation in schools and increases in teacher quality should be pursued to guarantee equality of… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In a series of mathematics education workshops in which teachers from adult basic education and vocational education worked together to design teaching situations on particular contents in mathematics in order to make explicit and bring into reflection the teaching strategies used by each group. The workshops constituted a common space of interaction for jointly designing teaching situations and creating common discourses that narrowed the distance between normative curriculum and actual teaching or real curriculum. In order for adult educators to teach effectively they must fulfill the following conditions: (1) they must provide a context for the teaching; (2) the knowledge taught must constitute a solution adapted to the problem; (3) there must be didactic variables that lead to the development of logic in a fruitful way; and… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Despite suggestions for incorporating students’ experiences into school math lessons, mathematics education seems to be the last bastion of formalism. This paper reports on a sociocultural study of the use of students’ personal experiences in early childhood elementary mathematics lessons. This study documents the use of students’ personal out-of-school experiences in classroom math and other subjects and investigates barriers that may prevent such linking. The following questions are addressed: (1) To what extent do teachers currently link school math and students’ personal out-of-school experiences? and (2) What influences the use of such linking? The study included observations of lessons in mathematics, language arts, and social studies in public, private, and homeschool settings. Despite recommendations in the literature, results showed that teachers rarely link students’ personal experiences to… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In this lesson, students identify the question-answer relationship (QAR) for word problems that relate to a graphic or table. They then use the QAR strategy to determine the mathematical and cognitive actions required to answer the word problem. This activity is particularly appropriate for fourth- and fifth-grade students. During two 40-minute sessions, students will: preview tables to stimulate prior knowledge, make predictions, interact with print, and generate questions and answers about the content; understand that the format of a table supports comprehension of the relationship between data and the self-monitoring of responses to questions; practice analyzing word problems using the QAR strategy to predict a computation strategy and determine a response; understand that the type of question may indicate the need for different cognitive and mathematical actions;… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Many people feel mathematics education in the U.S. is in need of improvement. Fennema and Franke (1992) note that teachers’ knowledge (or lack thereof) is often associated with poor instruction and thus, low student achievement on instruments which measure mathematical aptitude. For this reason, universities across the country have become mathematical and pedagogical (re)-training grounds for future, novice, and even experienced teachers. Fennema et al. (1996) indicate that the object of many professional development programs is to instill in teachers the kind of knowledge which will enable them to modify their own teaching so that students understand mathematics in a more meaningful way. But these authors also note that there is little agreement and even less evidence pointing to what specific knowledge is actually needed by teachers… Continue Reading →
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